After a rollercoaster weekend, Yuki Tsunoda managed to fight his way to the points and finished in P10 in the seventh leg of the season, the F1 Imola GP. In the print media pen, the Japanese driver gave insights about his adaptation process into the new Red Bull Racing car and his experience in the overall weekend.
A point is better than nothing for Yuki Tsunoda at the F1 Imola GP
The qualifying for the 2025 Imola GP witnessed a major crash by Tsunoda at Turn 6, which brought a red flag into the session for barrier repairs and to recover the scrapheap that was his car after he flipped before hitting the tyre barriers.
Tsunoda stated that after his massive crash, the Red Bull team worked hard overnight and did a magnificent job to fix his car. While expressing his frustration towards the crash which led him to start from the pit lane to the race, he also acknowledged that Sunday went relatively better, and he felt good at least garnering a point for his team.
Encouragingly for Red Bull, Max Verstappen beat the McLarens on merit with fantastic pace and good tyre degradation.
As for Tsunoda, he took advantage of the VSC to move himself towards the points. An overtake on Nico Hülkenberg after the final restart saw him end up in P10.
“The team made a good step. Myself, just very frustrated that I made a massive mistake yesterday.
“At least I gave something to the team, which is good. Especially the amount of work, the paddock stay overnight was massive, so it’s better than nothing.”
Having confidence in the car
The driver said the crash made him realize that he still has a long way to go to fully understand and adapt to RB21. Perhaps this unexpected crash influenced his confidence in the car negatively. Nevertheless, it reminded Tsunoda to take a step back and build his trust in the car gradually by understanding it.
On Sunday, the Japanese driver remarked that he regained his confidence during the race. He further admitted in the interview that there is still much to improve.
“This crash didn’t help at all with that [finding more confidence in the car]. I’m still learning. I think the crash recognised myself that I’m not understanding the car at all yet.
“As I had that crash, I still remember every single moment. From turning, everything, it was very unexpected. That movement is the first time I experienced those things.
“Sometimes you have to step back and build the confidence gradually. In this kind of environment, it’s easy to put myself under a lot of pressure. I have to rethink myself.
“I’m happy that I was able to build up confidence in the race. For sure, my progress is continuing, but there’s still a lot of room to improve.”
Moving on to score points
What drivers face after having a critical setback before the race, such as a major crash, are accomplishing to overcome the mental barriers, shaking it off, and starting fresh the next day. Tsunoda mentioned that he felt frustrated and unacceptable at first. Nonetheless, he admitted that he had to shake it off and move on from these feelings before heading to the race in order to reach his fullest potential in the competition and score points for his team.
“Myself, it’s been unacceptable. I moved on already, but there’s still something in my head, there’s a frustration.
“I shake it off, obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to score points there.”
Qualifying was a massive new set-up
According to Tsunoda, FP2 passed with struggles with the rear of the car. Although the team made promising progress after FP2, they had an entirely different set-up for the qualifying, which resulted in a crash. In Sunday F1 Imola GP, the car’s set-up wasn’t changed and even scored points for the team. The driver remarked that these ups and downs taught the team a lot about the RB21 for the upcoming races and new set-ups.
“We made a good step from FP2. FP2 was pretty bad with the rear deg and I was struggling quite a lot. So compared to that, we made a good step.
“To be honest, qualifying was kind of the set-up that I did the first time. It was quite a massive change.
“So actually, we didn’t really change the set-up, to be honest. It was pretty good for the race. I think we learned something as a team, also myself, for the future.”
A better result wasn’t impossible in F1 Imola GP for Yuki Tsunoda
Due to the Saturday crash, Tsunoda’s Sunday race car had old parts from FP1. When he was asked if a better result would be possible if there hadn’t been any crash in the qualifying, Tsunoda stated that it wasn’t impossible, considering his free practice 2 performance.
“I had already old parts from FP1, which I thought it was going to be the same [package as Verstappen].
“To be honest, I don’t know. If I put it all together and made it possible, I’d say FP2 was pretty good. I was pretty close with Max and I’m pretty happy with the pace. FP3 was a bit messy, so it’s hard to say. But yeah, I’d say FP2 was good. So I think that was not impossible for sure.”
Understanding RB21 more in each race week
In terms of accessing the full potential of the car, Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz, drivers who changed teams this season, mentioned that the process could take half a season. Tsunoda reflected that the timeline of this adaptation process depends on the car, and his RB21 challenger is not harder to understand compared to the others.
The Japanese driver said that he is learning more and more about the car through each race week while also gaining trust and confidence in the car.
“I think, to be honest, I don’t know about the other cars, Ferrari and Williams. At least my car, it’s not an easy beast to understand. I recognise how much I have to build confidence and build the learning throughout the race week.
“Because in the VCARB, even if we change a lot of set-ups, I know exactly what’s going to happen. I can react to it. From lap one already, from FP1 and FP2, I can be on the almost 99% push, on the limit.
“But the Red Bull, without that crash, I thought it was much under the limit, but at the same time, it was not at all. Those things come from the learning and the confidence, the understanding of the car.
“But the Red Bull, at least what I’ve experienced so far, it’s still a couple of steps to go, for sure.”
